2010/02/11: Guardian(UK): China’s fears of rich nation ‘climate conspiracy’ at Copenhagen revealed‘Conspiracy to divide developing world’ will make future talks harder, says leaked government reportRich nations furthered their “conspiracy to divide the developing world” at December’s UN climate summit in Copenhagen, while Canada “connived” and the EU acted “to please the United States”, according to an internal document from a Chinese government thinktank obtained by the Guardian. The document, which was written in the immediate aftermath of Copenhagen but has only now come to light, provides the most candid insight yet into Chinese thinking on the fraught summit.

2010/02/09: BBC: Time to think small on climate changeCopenhagen’s failure to deliver a legally binding deal has created an opportunity for individuals to fill the void left by politicians, says Sir David King. In this week’s Green Room, he explains how small-scale projects can move the world towards a low carbon future.

2010/02/14: NewNation: India, China resist calls to back climate pactIndia and China are resisting requests to sign up for the Copenhagen Accord for fighting global warming that risks unravelling without clear support from major emitters. The two have not publicly spelt out if they want to be listed among “associates” of the Accord, announced after a meeting of leaders of emerging economies and the United States during a U.N. summit in Copenhagen in December. “This point is still under consideration,” an Indian official said on Friday. Indian officials said the U.N. Climate Change Secretariat wrote a letter to New Delhi asking for a clarification of its views, “preferably” by Feb. 10. Like New Delhi, Beijing has expressed support for the Accord but stopped short of saying if it wants to be “associated”. Associates will be listed at the top of the three-page text. “There is no agreement on what are the implications of these terminologies and language,” an Indian official said. The accord may fall apart without them. The United States has said it is willing to be “associated” only if developed nations and “more advanced” developing nations also sign up. So far, about 80 of the 194 U.N. members have agreed.

2010/02/11: BBC: Copenhagen response ‘is pathetic’Industrialised nations have set “pathetic” targets to reduce carbon emissions, says one of India’s senior negotiators at the Copenhagen summit. One of the summit’s requirements was for countries to spell out by 31 January how they would cut emissions. But industrialised nations had failed to set the “truly ambitious” targets needed, Chandrashekhar Dasgupta said.

2010/02/12: UN: Ban unveils new high-level panel to spur action on climate changeThe leaders of the United Kingdom and Ethiopia will head up a new high-level group launched by Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today, intended to mobilize financing swiftly to help developing countries combat climate change. The Copenhagen Accord reached at December’s United Nations conference in the Danish capital aims to jump-start immediate action on climate change and guide negotiations on long-term action, with developing countries to be given $30 billion until 2012 and then $100 billion a year until 2020. It also includes an agreement to working towards curbing global temperature rise to below 2 degrees Celsius and efforts to reduce or limit emissions.

2010/02/12: EarthTimes: Group formed to seek climate change financingPrime Ministers Gordon Brown of Britain and Meles Zenawi of Ethiopia have accepted to co-chair a high level advisory group responsible for climate change financing, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said Friday. “Its mission is to mobilize the financial resources for climate change pledged at the recent United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen,” Ban said in announcing the new group. He said other members will include heads of state and government, high-level officials from ministries and Central Banks, as well as experts on public finance, development and related issues. Governments from developing and developed countries will have a balanced share of responsibility in raising funds. Ban said the advisory group will develop “practical proposals” to significantly scale-up both short-term and long-term financing for mitigation and adaptation strategies in developing countries.

2010/02/12: EurActiv: US, India negotiators pessimistic over UN climate talksPersistent divergences over UN climate negotiations augur tough times ahead, US and Indian negotiators indicated at a Brussels event on Friday (11 February). Jonathan Pershing, US deputy special envoy for climate change, put the problems down to a history of fundamental disagreements about what the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) stands for. “At one end, many countries perceive this as a venue in which all issues are on the table – it’s a conversation about development and about the global correction for that. At the other end, you’ve got a community who see this as a narrow environmental problem,” he told the annual conference of the French Institute of International Relations (Ifri). While Copenhagen brought recognition that the convention can no longer be about a narrow environmental agenda, it will become a roadblock if it seeks to solve every problem, he said.

2010/02/11: Reuters: G20, U.N. vote reform could help climate deal — G20, U.N. reform seen helping climate talks – U.N. seeks ideas for way forward on talksClimate talks by the Group of 20 and a suggested shift to majority voting for U.N. decisions could revive work on a new pact to fight global warming after the low-ambition Copenhagen summit, analysts say. The U.N. Climate Change Secretariat has asked all nations for views by Feb. 16 about how many U.N. meetings are needed in 2010 to try to build momentum for the next annual ministerial talks, in Mexico from Nov. 29 to Dec. 10. Countries are unclear what to do after Copenhagen fell short of a binding treaty urged by most nations and left the 2010 calendar almost bare. The only other planned U.N. meeting before Mexico is of bureaucrats, in Bonn from May 31-June 11.

2010/02/09: EurActiv: We can’t ditch Kyoto Protocol, says Indian ambassadorThe Kyoto Protocol represents an international commitment to fulfil developed countries’ historical responsibility for climate change and its elaborate compliance mechanism is difficult to replicate, the Indian ambassador to the EU, Dr. J. Bhagwati, told EurActiv in an interview. India, which was one of the leading countries framing the face-saving Copenhagen Accord on climate change last December (EurActiv 19/12/09), is convinced that replacing the protocol with another instrument would only lend credence to the suspicion that the developed countries wish to get away from their legally-binding commitments.

2010/02/08: NYT:CW: Legally Binding? It’s So 2009Washington’s climate policy analysts from environmental groups are quietly abandoning — at least temporarily — the once sacrosanct notion that nations must agree to legally binding emission targets. Several experts with ties to the Obama administration either personally or through their organizations said in recent interviews they don’t view a new global treaty as likely or even desirable by the time countries meet in December for the next U.N. climate summit in Cancun, Mexico.

2010/02/07: Yahoo:AFP: Drought in SW Australia linked to snowfall in AntarcticaA drought that has gripped the southwestern corner of Australia since the 1970s is linked with higher snowfall in East Antarctica, a phenomenon that may be rooted in global warming, scientists reported on Sunday. Researchers Tas van Ommen and Vin Morgan of the Australian Antarctic Division said that the drought — which has seen winter rainfall decline by 15-20 percent — is extremely unusual when compared with the last 750 years. Hand in hand with the drought is a similarly exceptional rise in snowfall at Law Dome, an icecap on the coast of East Antarctica. The apparent reason is a “precipitation see-saw,” the pair report in a paper published online by the journal Nature Geoscience.

2010/02/11: CBC: Cave research suggests fast-forming glaciersScientists studying the history of sea levels in Spain say they’ve found evidence that glaciers can form and melt faster than previously thought. The research done in caves on the Spanish island of Majorca suggests that the sea level 81,000 years ago was more than a metre higher than it is today. The sea level rises when glaciers melt and falls when glaciers form. Between the last warm interval, 125,000 years ago, and the last ice age, 20,000 years ago, the sea fell by about 130 metres.

2010/02/08: PlanetArk: Loss Of Species Hits Economy; New U.N. Goals NeededLosses of animal and plant species are an increasing economic threat and the world needs new goals for protecting nature after failing to achieve a 2010 U.N. target of slowing extinctions, experts said Friday. Losses of biodiversity “have increasingly dangerous consequences for human well-being, even survival for some societies,” according to a summary of a 90-nation U.N. backed conference in Norway from February 1-5. The United Nations says that the world is facing the worst extinction crisis since the dinosaurs were wiped out 65 million years ago, driven by a rising human population and spinoffs such as pollution, expanding cities and global warming.

2010/02/12: TWTB: Hoisted on their own petardThe all out assault on climate reality continues. Anti-science front group SPPI has put together a series of attacks on RealClimate by the Pielkes and others, courtesy of Marc “Swiftboat” Morano.

2010/02/11: BBC: Climate e-mails inquiry under wayA panel of independent experts has officially begun its inquiry into the “Climategate” affair. The experts, headed by Sir Muir Russell, will investigate how e-mails from the UK’s Climatic Research Unit (CRU) appeared on the web. They will also consider if the e-mail exchanges between researchers show an attempt to manipulate or suppress data “at odds” with scientific practice. The panel hopes to present “preliminary conclusions by spring 2010”.

2010/02/10: JQuiggin: Climategate revisitedNow that the main charges of scientific misconduct arising from the hacking of the University of East Anglia email system have been proven false, it’s possible to get a reasonably clear idea of what actually happened here. For once the widely used “X-gate” terminology is appropriate. As with Watergate, the central incident was a “third-rate burglary” conducted as part of a campaign of overt and covert harassment directed against political opponents and rewarded (at least in the short run) with political success. The core of the campaign is a network of professional lobbyists, rightwing activists and politicians, tame journalists and a handful of scientists (including some at the University of East Anglia itself) who present themselves as independent seekers after truth, but are actually in regular contact to co-ordinate their actions and talking points. The main mechanism of harassment was the misuse of Freedom of Information requests in an effort to disrupt the work of scientists, trap them into failures of compliance, and extract information that could be misrepresented as evidence of scientific misconduct. This is a long-standing tactic in the rightwing War on Science, reflected in such Orwellian pieces of legislation as the US “Data Quality Act”.

Here’s a preview of the coming result:

2010/02/13: ChronicleHerald: Climate change skeptics can’t change reality‘It sounds silly when you say it out loud,” said Ram Myers, “but they seemed to have a notion that you could sit in Ottawa and ‘make up’ reality. If you could enforce a scientific consensus, that would ‘be’ reality.” That’s Ransom A. Myers, Dalhousie University’s late, great and sorely missed marine biologist, talking about the federal bureaucrats who “gruesomely mangled and corrupted” the research of their own scientists, to quote an internal Fisheries and Oceans Canada report, and thus allowed three imperilled groundfish stocks to be fished almost to extinction. Myers’s comment has echoed in my mind since the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change began imploding in the blizzard of compromising emails that escaped from the University of East Anglia in December. That episode was followed by the disclosure that several findings in the panel’s 2007 report were based on faulty evidence.

2010/02/13: CanWest: Adventurer calls off Arctic trek due to ‘perilous’ ice conditions — ‘Pole of Inaccessibility’ is greatest distance from land in northern seaCiting the “perilous” frailty of the polar ice cap, a British team’s bid to trek from the edge of Arctic Canada to the Northern Pole of Inaccessibility — the most remote place in the Arctic Ocean — has been scuttled just days ahead of the planned departure from Nunavut’s Ellef Ringnes Island. Warned by Environment Canada that the High Arctic is experiencing the “worst conditions” for winter ice cover in decades, the leader of the proposed 1,100-kilometre journey said making the attempt would be “foolhardy” and “endanger lives unnecessarily.” It’s the third time adventurer Jim McNeill has been thwarted in his quest to complete what’s been called exploration’s “last true world first” — a slog to the spot in the Arctic Ocean that lies the greatest distance from any point of land. In 2003, a bout of flesh-eating disease in his ankle ended the trip. In 2006, the attempt was aborted due to disintegrating ice and equipment problems. And the latest cancellation follows last week’s release of a landmark Canadian study that highlighted unprecedented expanses of open water in the polar sea and predicted ice-free summers in the central Arctic Ocean much sooner than previously forecast.

2010/02/13: TStar: ‘Thinking’ robot to explore depths of Arctic waters — 5,000 metres underwater, it will retrieve data to help Canada support its Arctic claimThrough a hole cut in the High Arctic ice, Canada’s latest pioneer will dive to lightless depths to fathom a mountainous undersea world unseen by human eyes. Shaped like a six-metre-long torpedo, Explorer will creep through the darkness at the speed of a briskly paddled canoe, under pressure so powerful it would crush a car into a block of steel scrap. In March, a small team of Canadian government and industry experts plans to launch the autonomous unmanned vehicle (AUV) from an ice camp north of Borden Island, in the eastern Arctic, more than 4,100 kilometres northwest of Toronto. The yellow craft will be on a critical mission to map the sea floor, at a depth of some five kilometres, as Canada rushes to compile evidence supporting its claim to a vast northern territory before a 2013 deadline.

2010/02/02: LA DailyNews: Demand for food ‘staggering’The number of Los Angeles County residents seeking help from food pantries, soup kitchens and shelters skyrocketed 46 percent in the last four years as the country plunged into recession, according to a report issued Tuesday. The Los Angeles Regional Foodbank report found that the number of residents seeking food assistance grew from 674,100 in 2005 to a record 983,400 last year. The number of children receiving food assistance more than doubled from 185,000 to 393,000 in that time.

2010/02/09: NYT: Hungry in AmericaMore Americans are going hungry in hard times and are increasingly dependent on private charity, according to a new study by Feeding America, a national network of food banks. The study found that 37 million people — roughly one in eight Americans — had sought emergency food assistance from the network last year, a 46 percent increase from 2006.

2010/02/08: EarthTimes: Insects devastate Thailand’s rice crop, institute saysBangkok – Excessive use of fertilizers and pesticides and other poor farming practices have led to an insect plague in Thailand’s rice fields that was predicted to reduce yields by 30 per cent in vast areas, the International Rice Research Institute warned Monday. “This is the worst outbreak of brown planthoppers I have seen in my career since 1977,” said Manit Luecha, director of the Chainat Rice Seed Center. “Most of the paddy fields – probably more than 1 million hectares – will suffer rice yield losses of more than 30 per cent,” he predicted. Thailand is the world’s largest rice exporter. Last year, it shipped 8.6 million tons abroad, earning the country 5 billion dollars in foreign exchange.

2010/02/08: AllAfrica: ZimStandard: Zimbabwe: Two Million Face Starvation As Crops FailBulawayo – Over two million Zimbabweans face starvation before the harvest season in March, a huge jump from the December figure of 1,74 million, a survey conducted by a USAid food monitoring agency has revealed. The Famine Early Warning Systems Network (Fewsnet) said the number of Zimbabweans in need of emergency food aid now stands at 2,17 million.

2010/02/02: HampshireChronicle(UK): Children ‘believe sheep lay eggs’Eggs come from sheep, crisps are made of plastic and butterflies produce cheese – these are just some of the wrong answers given by children in a test of their knowledge of food sources, it was revealed. The survey of more than 1,000 school children showed that nearly two thirds struggled to identify the origins of the everyday foods they eat.

2010/02/09: PlanetArk: Australia’s “Top End” Too Dry To Become Food BowlThe dream of turning Australia’s tropical north into a major food bowl to replace drought-stricken southern farmlands and feed a future Asia has been shattered by a new report released on Monday. Despite a billion of liters of annual rain, the equivalent of 2,000 Sydney Harbours, northern Australia has limited water, with 65 percent of rain lost through evaporation and 20 percent in rivers, while only 15 percent recharges groundwater reserves. And climate change will make northern Australia hotter and drier by 2030, reducing water availability, said the report by the Northern Australian Land and Water Taskforce.

2010/02/10: BWeek: Emissions to Rise More Slowly Through 2011, DOE SaysCarbon dioxide emissions fell further in 2009 than first thought and may not rise as quickly as the economy grows, according to the Energy Information Administration’s monthly Short-term Energy Outlook. Emissions from burning coal, oil and natural gas fell 6.3 percent in 2009, the EIA said, a revision from last month’s estimate of 6.1 percent. The EIA’s prediction of a 1.5 percent increase in emissions this year was unchanged. Today’s prediction of a further 1.3 percent emissions increase in 2011 was lower than last month’s estimate of 1.7 percent.

2010/02/08: SeedDaily: Climate change impact of soil underestimated: studyFinnish researchers called for a revision of climate change estimates Monday after their findings showed emissions from soil would contribute more to climate warming than previously thought. “A Finnish research group has proved that the present standard measurements underestimate the effect of climate warming on emissions from the soil,” the Finnish Environment Institute said in a statement.

2010/02/08: CSM: What’s really causing Himalayan glaciers to melt?[…]Now, a new study by scientists at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, and NCAR, finds that human-emitted aerosols are the single major contributor to glacial melt in the Himalayas. In this case, increasing concentrations of carbon dioxide are not melting the mountain glaciers, say the authors. Particulate matter, particularly black carbon from cooking fires and coal-fired plants in India, is the real culprit.

2010/02/08: PhysOrg: Butterflies seek higher ground to escape warmer temperaturesA study of beleaguered butterflies in California provides some of the best clues yet as to how other animals may react to climate change, scientists say. The unprecedented, 35-year analysis of butterfly populations in the Sierra Nevada details how several species are fleeing to higher elevations to escape warming temperatures. Those butterflies that already live on mountaintops and can’t adjust to the heat have “nowhere else to go but heaven,” says Arthur Shapiro, a biologist at University of California-Davis who collected the data.

2010/02/09: BBC: Season shifts ‘alter food chains’Springtime in the UK is starting on average 11 days earlier than 30 years ago, causing natural food chains to become disrupted, a study suggests. Predators seem to be slower than organisms further down the food chains to respond to the seasonal shifts, according to a team of UK researchers. The findings are based on more than 25,500 records of 726 marine, terrestrial and freshwater species. The study has been published in the journal Global Change Biology.

2010/02/11: CBC: Logging makes forests more flammable: studyCommercial logging of moist native forests creates conditions that increase the severity and frequency of bushfires, an international study claims. The finding by Australian, Canadian and U.S. researchers is based on a review of previous studies and is published in the latest issue of the journal Conservation Letters.

2010/02/12: PlanetArk: Water-Gulping Companies’ Risk Disclosures Run Dry: ReportMost publicly traded companies that depend on water do not adequately disclose their financial risks to droughts and future regulations, even as water scarcity problems mount, according to a report released on Thursday. The report produced by Ceres, a coalition of investors and environmentalists and Swiss Bank UBS, ranked 100 of the biggest publicly traded companies on the quality, depth and clarity of their water disclosure risks and opportunities.

2010/02/08: PlanetArk: Water At Core Of Climate Change Impacts: ExpertsThe main impact of climate change will be on water supplies and the world needs to learn from past cooperation such as over the Indus or Mekong Rivers to help avert future conflicts, experts said on Sunday. Desertification, flash floods, melting glaciers, heatwaves, cyclones or water-borne diseases such as cholera are among the impacts of global warming inextricably tied to water. And competition for supplies might cause conflicts. “The main manifestations of rising temperatures…are about water,” said Zafar Adeel, chair of UN-Water which coordinates work on water among 26 U.N. agencies.

2010/02/12: PlanetArk: Venezuela Tries To Make It RainVenezuela is not at war with the skies but with a severe drought that has caused an electricity crisis and forced the government to resort to unconventional methods to make it rain. The government began “bombing clouds,” or cloud seeding, late last year after it emerged that the country was facing a dire water shortage. Using technology borrowed from Cuba and Chile, the idea is to fire a mixture of silver iodide, dry ice and salt into vertically growing cumulonimbus clouds to encourage raindrops to join together.

2010/02/08: FTimes: Carbon markets failing, say British MPsThe carbon markets are failing in their role of encouraging investment in cutting CO 2 emissions, MPs have concluded. The environmental audit committee has urged the government to consider other measures, such as a floor price for carbon dioxide emissions, which would provide industries with greater certainty over the price of carbon and help to ensure the system of pricing was effective. The MPs said a price of 100 euros per tonne of CO 2 could be necessary to encourage investment, compared with current prices of about 13 euros. Tim Yeo, who chairs the committee, said: “Emissions trading should be helping us to combat climate change but, at the moment, the price of carbon simply isn’t high enough to make it work.

The Tobin tax put in an appearance:

2010/02/09: BBC: Banks [Tobin] tax ‘would raise billions’A transaction tax on banks would raise as much as $400bn a year (£250bn; 291.2bn euros), campaigners have said. Supporters say money raised could help protect public services and jobs, fight poverty and tackle climate change. The campaign is backed by almost 50 groups, including the TUC and Oxfam, as well as big names like actor Bill Nighy and film maker Richard Curtis. In recent months governments and bankers have mooted similar plans – to insure against future banking crashes.

2010/02/12: CBC: B.C., 3 western states sign accordsBritish Columbia, Washington, Oregon and California have signed two agreements aimed at boosting the West Coast economy and protecting the environment. The deals were signed in Vancouver at a meeting of B.C. Premier Gordon Campbell, Washington Gov. Christine Gregoire, Oregon Gov. Ted Kulongoski and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger of California. B.C. and the three states promised to work together on issues such as energy conservation and a high-speed rail service from San Diego to Vancouver.

2010/02/11: MiamiHerald: A clean energy gold rushOf the 10 largest wind power companies in the world, the United States has one – General Electric. Of the world’s 10 largest solar companies, we have two – First Solar and SunPower – but almost all their manufacturing is in Asia. Hydropower and geothermal companies are also located in the Far East. The United States, with no national goal or policy framework for clean energy, simply hasn’t found a way to create a stable marketplace where large, renewable energy companies can thrive. For a nation that consumes 25 percent of the world’s energy, our failure to compete is ominous, and all the more troubling because a veritable “clean energy gold rush” has begun.

2010/02/11: AzCentral: Arizona quits Western climate endeavor — Cutting greenhouse gases too expensive, Brewer saysArizona will no longer participate in a groundbreaking attempt to limit greenhouse-gas emissions across the West, a change in policy by Gov. Jan Brewer that will include a review of all the state’s efforts to combat climate change. Brewer stopped short of pulling Arizona out of the multistate coalition [Western Climate Initiative] that plans to regulate greenhouse gases starting in 2012. But she made it clear in an executive order that Arizona will not endorse the emission-control plan or any program that could raise costs for consumers and businesses.

2010/02/10: PlanetArk: Renewables Mandate Could Even Playing Field With ChinaA federal mandate for renewable electricity could ensure U.S. competitiveness with China on clean fuels and create thousands of home-grown jobs by wooing manufacturers that have been turned off by America’s unsteady support for the industry, according to a new study commissioned by an alliance of 19 energy firms and trade groups.

What are the lobbyists pushing?

2010/02/11: Reuters: Lobbyists for US cap and trade face daunting taskThe U.S. Senate’s stalled climate bill is getting a last big push from an unlikely ally — a group of energy companies who say a carbon market will help them get financing for the next generation of energy production. But intensive lobbying by these climate bill proponents — including heavyweights like Duke Energy, Shell Oil Co and General Electric Co — may not be enough to counter powerful opposition and get a bill passed before the U.S. mid-term elections in November.

2010/02/10: NYT:CW: Climate and Energy Issues Send Hordes to K StreetThe number of companies and organizations hiring energy lobbyists reached record levels last year as major climate legislation worked its way through Congress. More than 1,700 groups and businesses turned to K Street in 2009 for help on energy, climate and nuclear issues, a jump from 1,331 in 2008, according to new data compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics. The numbers constitute a more than 70 percent increase from three years ago and include companies ranging from information technology giants to steel manufacturers. In addition, many companies spent unprecedented amounts individually to get their voices heard on global warming policy with federal agencies and lawmakers.

The Gore-apalooza is still bopping along:

2010/02/12: FTimes: Business and banks see lack of support for green energySupport for low-carbon energy such as wind and nuclear power is insufficient to deliver the investment the government wants, industry leaders warned the prime minister this week. They also called on the government to help educate the public to expect higher energy prices. Chief executives and other senior managers of leading energy companies, banks and manufacturers gave their ideas for encouraging investment at a meeting in Downing Street on Monday with Gordon Brown, the prime minister, Lord Mandelson, business secretary, and Ed Miliband, energy and climate change secretary.

2010/02/10: EurActiv: Commission forced to scale down soil lawFollowing years of negotiations, five EU member states still form a blocking minority on the European Commission’s proposal for a directive on soil protection, leaving some to wonder whether the EU executive should reconsider its approach to addressing this environmental issue. Austria, France, Germany, the Netherlands and the UK reiterated their opposition to the proposals after the Spanish EU Presidency’s had attempted to find political agreement in the Council last week (4 February). Identification of contaminated sites remains one of the main sticking points and a sensible and cost-efficient system for their remediation is yet to be found, one diplomat told EurActiv. Meanwhile, political pressure to protect soil is mounting amid recognition of its role in capturing carbon and thus combating climate change.

2010/02/08: PlanetArk: Reuters “Smart” Power Key As EU Sparks Electric Car DebateElectric cars must be backed by “smart” power networks if they are to help the world’s climate problems, environmentalists warned on Monday as European ministers prepared to debate a strategy for the sector. Industry ministers will meet on Tuesday in San Sebastian, Spain to discuss how to realign power infrastructure, equipment standards and the marketplace so that European carmakers can race ahead of rivals in Japan, China and the United States.

2010/02/11: ABC(Au): Turnbull crosses floor on ETS voteThe House of Representatives has passed the Federal Government’s emissions trading scheme for the third time. As expected, former Liberal leader Malcolm Turnbull crossed the floor to vote with the Government. The legislation passed 79 to 57 votes.

2010/02/11: ABC(Au): MP says climate change debate not deliveringThe Federal Government and Coalition are under fire from an independent MP for trying to “point score” over climate change. The Member for Lyne, Rob Oakeshott, has told Parliament the ALP’s Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme Bill is “dead” and the Coalition’s policy is “ETS-lite”. He says a critical difference between the two schemes is the Coalition’s does not put a price on carbon. Mr Oakeshott says there is a choice between two emissions trading schemes, but nothing has been achieved yet.

2010/02/10: ABC(Au): Network echoes calls for Green Loans changeThe Gippsland Sustainability Network has joined calls for a shake-up of the Green Loans scheme. The Federal Government offered interest free loans for energy saving measures to be retro-fitted to homes. But the Greens say the the scheme has been badly administered and installers have not been supervised or accredited properly.

2010/02/10: BBerg: Australia Solar Program Costs Rise A$850 Million, Review SaysAustralia’s household solar panel program cost almost seven times as much as expected with an A$850 million ($745 million) rise in expenses as demand outstripped supply, the Australian Financial Review reported. The program, which gave rebates for the installation of solar panels, cost A$1 billion over 18 months before being cancelled, the Review said, citing government budget papers.

2010/02/09: PlanetArk: Australia’s “Top End” Too Dry To Become Food BowlThe dream of turning Australia’s tropical north into a major food bowl to replace drought-stricken southern farmlands and feed a future Asia has been shattered by a new report released on Monday. Despite a billion of liters of annual rain, the equivalent of 2,000 Sydney Harbours, northern Australia has limited water, with 65 percent of rain lost through evaporation and 20 percent in rivers, while only 15 percent recharges groundwater reserves. And climate change will make northern Australia hotter and drier by 2030, reducing water availability, said the report by the Northern Australian Land and Water Taskforce.

2010/02/09: BBerg: Australian Carbon Plan More Cost-Effective, New Energy SaysAustralia’s climate-change bill, which includes plans for a carbon trading system similar to one used in Europe, is more cost-effective than an alternative proposal from the opposition, Bloomberg New Energy Finance said. The Liberal-National opposition’s plan to create a fund to support emission reductions can’t guarantee a specific level of cuts and offers fewer incentives to abate carbon, Bloomberg New Energy Finance said in an e-mailed statement today.

2010/02/07: HeraldSun: Climate-change showdownParliament is shaping up for a climate-change showdown this week as Tony Abbott and Malcolm Turnbull go head-to-head on emissions trading. Mr Turnbull will back Labor’s climate change policy in a speech today and has signalled he will cross the floor to vote with the Government.

2010/02/11: BBC: Copenhagen response ‘is pathetic’Industrialised nations have set “pathetic” targets to reduce carbon emissions, says one of India’s senior negotiators at the Copenhagen summit. One of the summit’s requirements was for countries to spell out by 31 January how they would cut emissions. But industrialised nations had failed to set the “truly ambitious” targets needed, Chandrashekhar Dasgupta said.

2010/02/09: BBC: Chavez declares energy emergencyVenezuelan President Hugo Chavez has signed a decree declaring an “electricity emergency” to help his government tackle power shortages. Speaking on his new radio show President Chavez said Venezuela, which depends heavily on hydropower, was facing the worst drought in 100 years.

2010/02/11: CBC: Indigenous groups left out of Arctic leaders’ summitArctic indigenous groups are criticizing Canada’s decision to leave them out of an upcoming meeting of Arctic nations in Quebec next month. Federal Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon recently announced that he will host a meeting of foreign ministers from the Arctic Ocean coastal countries of Norway, Russia, Denmark (which includes Greenland) and the United States on March 29 in Chelsea, Que. The Arctic leaders will discuss ways to pursue responsible economic development in the North, Cannon said in a release.

2010/02/10: CanWest: Water crackdown needs cash flow, Prentice toldEnvironment Minister Jim Prentice has left Canadian mayors scratching their heads about his plans to crack down on water pollution without offering new funding. Prentice said Tuesday in Brockville that the government is introducing draft regulations to restrict raw sewage dumping with new national standards for municipal waste water plants.

2010/02/10: G&M: Cap-and-dividend: the jolt Harper needs?The potential political allure of the U.S. Senate bill: Families would get a cheque in the mail every year Since the Harper government has essentially handed over most of Canada’s climate-change policy to the United States, what happens there directly affects what will happen here.[…]Cap-and-trade, however, is drawing political fire in the U.S. for being complicated, a boon to Wall Street traders, and leaving companies uncertain about the price they will pay. […]But now comes a new idea, or at least an amalgam of old ideas that makes it seem new, and this might break the logjam in Congress. Properly studied and adapted to different circumstances, it could provide a jolt of new thinking for the Harper government, assuming this government wishes to do any thinking about a subject it dislikes. The idea, from Democratic Senator Maria Cantwell of the state of Washington, is for a cap-and-dividend system, whereby an annual cap would be placed on emissions from coal, oil and natural gas sources. The cap would gradually fall each year. The permits to pollute would be traded, with a fixed price known in advance. The bulk of the revenue from the yearly auction, however, would be returned to consumers to compensate them — and, in some cases, to overcompensate them — for the higher prices that fuel companies would pass on after buying the polluting credits.

Alternatives North petitioned the NEB for current information in the Mackenzie Valley pipeline estimates. The proponents said no:

2010/02/08: CBC: Mackenzie pipeline’s numbers questionedA Yellowknife social justice group wants proponents of the proposed Mackenzie Valley pipeline to produce updated information on whether the project makes economic sense. In a notice of motion filed with the National Energy Board on Thursday, Alternatives North asked pipeline proponents to update their assessment of the natural gas market and the economic feasibility of the pipeline. The federal energy regulator has given the consortium of pipeline proponents, led by Imperial Oil, until Wednesday at noon MT to respond. Alternatives North says the pipeline consortium has been using numbers from three years ago.

2010/02/11: CBC: No need to update Mackenzie pipeline numbers: ImperialThe lead proponent of the Mackenzie Gas Project says it should not have to provide an update on the economic feasibility of the proposed Mackenzie Valley natural gas pipeline in the Northwest Territories. Imperial Oil, which heads the consortium of companies behind the pipeline proposal, responded on Wednesday to a request from Alternatives North to release updated data on the natural gas market and the economic feasibility of the pipeline.

2010/02/10: CBC: Ludwig search warrant cites phone records, letter to EnCanaCBC has obtained a copy of the search warrant executed last month on Wiebo Ludwig’s farm near Hythe, Alta., in connection with the investigation into the bombing of natural gas pipeline sites in B.C. RCMP arrested Ludwig on Jan. 8 and held him overnight for questioning as part of their investigation into six bombings between October 2008 and July 2009 at facilities owned by Alberta-based energy giant EnCana. They also searched Trickle Creek Farm, Ludwig’s 325-hectare property in Hythe. No charges were laid, but police said the search advanced their investigation.

More fun and games between Quebec and Ottawa:

2010/02/13: Canoe: Green Quebec government looking for oil sands investorsAfter Quebec Premier Jean Charest publicly decried the oilsands projects last year in Copenhagen, the Quebec government is now asking entrepreneurs in the province to participate in a commercial mission in Edmonton to set up some business relationships with Alberta’s oil industry. In a message destined to entrepreneurs from Quebec, the Ministry of Economic Development said “that the resumption of the oil sands development projects in Alberta” provides us with “some good business opportunities.” The ministry goes on to provide a list of the projects for which Quebec companies could become suppliers such as Suncor and Husky. The mission – which happens every four years — is coming at a time when the issue of the oilsands, and the greenhouse gases generated by this operation, is a sensitive point between Quebec and Ottawa.

2010/02/09: G&M: Charest’s been blowing smoke on tailpipe emissions [Spector]Remember that tiff last week between Jean Charest and Jim Prentice, after the federal environment minister dared to criticize Quebec for going it alone on tailpipe emission standards? In today’s Journal de Quebec — under the headline “Quebec is giving preferential treatment to obtain SUV’s,” Michel Hébert reports: “Since January 14, Quebec has been applying tailpipe emission standards in regard to SUV’s that are tougher than California’s. A few days after the regulations came into effect, GM, Ford, Chrysler, Volkswagen and Nissan met with officials of the environment ministry and further meetings are planned. In a letter sent to the ministry, the manufacturers say they are “delighted with your offer to review ways” of quickly adjusting the major elements of Quebec’s regulations that differ from “those of California.” Without knowing it, some 2010 models were not available in Quebec but were sold in Ontario. So, after GM refused to sell large 4 WD vehicles to Hydro Quebec because of the Quebec standards, a quiet agreement was made to exempt the Yukon, Escalade and Savana models from the regulations.”

While in the maritimes:

2010/02/10: CBC: Prepare for rising sea levels, Halifax toldHalifax municipal officials plan to take inventory of every property along the harbour as a new study suggests water levels could rise 73 centimetres by the next century. The study, presented to regional councillors on Tuesday, looks at the effects of climate change on the waterfront by 2100. It predicts that sea levels could rise even higher during storms and hurricanes, to 2.67 metres. Lead researcher Roger Wells said the Halifax Regional Municipality needs to understand how this can affect harbour properties, and prepare.

And then there is the miscellaneous Canadiana:

2010/02/11: Eureka: Queen’s researchers propose rethinking renewable energy strategyResearchers at Queen’s University suggest that policy makers examine greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions implications for energy infrastructure as fossil fuel sources must be rapidly replaced by windmills, solar panels and other sources of renewable energy. Their recommendations could be used to help policy makers restructure renewable energy production in a way that will optimize greenhouse gas emission reductions.

2010/02/08: EurActiv: Business sketches path to sustainable livingMajor multinational corporations want to lead the way towards sustainability, arguing that global challenges present vast business opportunities. Sustainable living by 2050 will require “fundamental changes in governance structures, economic frameworks, business and human behaviour,” notes a report presented last week at the World CEO Forum in New Delhi. The Vision 2050 – The new agenda for business report, published by the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD), argues that the changes are attainable and “offer tremendous business opportunities for companies to turn sustainability into strategy”. They are convinced that some nine billion people can live well within the resource limits of the planet by 2050.

2010/02/10: ClimateP: Revkin’s DotEarth hypes disinformation posted on an anti-science website[…]From the NY Times to CBS News to the Economist to much of the British press, responsible media coverage of climate science has all but ended. I have some ideas why this has happened and what to do about it, which I’ll discuss later. But one of the reasons for the collapse is the media’s refusal to draw a distinction between what scientists say based on actual observations and analysis in the peer-reviewed literature and what anti-science disinformers say based on their total lack of knowledge of the science and general willingness to misrepresent the facts or make stuff up.

As for scientists and communication skills:

2010/02/13: BBerg: U.S. Chamber of Commerce Asks Court to Review EPA Carbon RulingThe U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the country’s largest business-lobbying group, is asking a federal court to review the Obama administration’s decision to declare greenhouse gases a health risk under the Clean Air Act. The Chamber’s petition, filed yesterday with the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington, challenges the Environmental Protection Agency’s ruling made in December, said Abram Olmstead, a spokesman for the Washington-based group. The EPA’s decision paves the way for the agency to regulate carbon-dioxide emissions from sources such as power plants and factories. The ruling is aimed at curbing climate change and giving companies certainty in investments geared toward clean- energy technology, EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson has said. Opponents say the move would hurt the economy and cost jobs.

2010/02/10: NYT: Outspoken Hurricane Expert Sues Over DismissalLast April, Ivor van Heerden, an internationally known hurricane expert, was told he was losing his job at Louisiana State University. He and other experts said it was because of his outspoken criticism of the federal government’s flood protection of New Orleans; the university would not comment. Now Dr. van Heerden, the former deputy director of the L.S.U. Hurricane Center, is suing the university to get his job back. His lawyers filed a lawsuit in Louisiana state court on Wednesday morning, charging harassment and wrongful termination.

2010/02/11: MiamiHerald: A clean energy gold rushOf the 10 largest wind power companies in the world, the United States has one – General Electric. Of the world’s 10 largest solar companies, we have two – First Solar and SunPower – but almost all their manufacturing is in Asia. Hydropower and geothermal companies are also located in the Far East. The United States, with no national goal or policy framework for clean energy, simply hasn’t found a way to create a stable marketplace where large, renewable energy companies can thrive. For a nation that consumes 25 percent of the world’s energy, our failure to compete is ominous, and all the more troubling because a veritable “clean energy gold rush” has begun.

2010/02/10: PlanetArk: Price Ultimate Driver Of Greener Energy Use: GEPricing systems that encourage households to use energy more efficiently are the best way to help consumers to protect the environment, a senior General Electric Co executive said on Tuesday. Bob Gilligan, GE’s vice president of transmission and distribution, said the development of appliances that adjust their own energy use in response to signals from utility companies would be a key step in achieving this.

2010/02/11: CBC: Eastern P.E.I. says no to wind turbinesThe Prince Edward Island community of Eastern Kings is taking a stance against wind development projects, but no one representing the community is willing to talk about the details. The local council held a vote Tuesday night in response to a proposal made by PEI Green Energy Inc., which wants to install 28 turbines near East Point. There were about 100 people at the meeting, from the community which has a population of a little under 1,000.

2010/02/09: Australian: China denies $US60bn coal deal with Clive Palmer’s ResourcehouseChina’s largest power company has denied it has signed a $US60 billion ($69.4bn) deal with mining millionaire Clive Palmer. Mr Palmer said on the weekend his company, Resourcehouse, had signed a $US60bn, 20-year coal export contract with China Power International Development. Announcing the deal, Mr Palmer said it was Australia’s biggest ever export contract and would bring Resourcehouse’s giant China First thermal coalmine in Queensland a step closer to reality. But China’s state-controlled Xinhua news agency has reported that China Power International Development, a unit of major power producer China Power Investment Corp, has denied the reports that it had signed a $US60bn coal-supply deal with Resourcehouse. The report said that an official from China Power International Development said what the two companies had signed was an agreement of intent, and they had not yet started price negotiations.

2010/02/09: NYT: Leaks Trouble Nominees for Nuclear PanelTritium leaks like the one that threatens the future of the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant are undermining confidence in other reactors around the country, three experts nominated by President Obama to join the Nuclear Regulatory Commission said Tuesday at their confirmation hearing. The leaks by themselves do not appear to have had any impact on public health, one of the three, William D. Magwood IV, told the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. “The point is not that it’s not hurting anyone,” he said. “The point is it’s showing you don’t have your act together.”

2010/02/10: Oregonian: Despite billions spent on cleanup, Hanford won’t be clean for thousands of yearsSome radioactive contaminants at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation will threaten the Columbia River for thousands of years, a new analysis projects, despite the multibillion-dollar cleanup efforts by the federal government. The U.S. Department of Energy projections come from a new analysis of how best to clean up leaking storage tanks and manage waste at Hanford, a former nuclear weapons production site on 586 square miles next to the Columbia in southeastern Washington.

2010/02/12: CBC: New vehicle sales rise 2.6% [mom]Canadian new motor vehicle sales rose 2.6 per cent in December, largely on the strength of higher sales of North American-built passenger cars, Statistics Canada reported Friday. Sales in the month totalled 128,663. Statistics Canada reported monthly sales for the year averaged around 124,000, down from about 140,000 in 2008.

2010/02/09: BBC: Carlos Ghosn’s zero emission goalFor the head of Renault-Nissan, Carlos Ghosn, there is only one way forward for his industry. In an open and candid interview for BBC World Service’s The Interview programme, he has outlined how he will be pinning the future hopes of his company in the development of the electric car.

2010/02/12: PlanetArk: Water-Gulping Companies’ Risk Disclosures Run Dry: ReportMost publicly traded companies that depend on water do not adequately disclose their financial risks to droughts and future regulations, even as water scarcity problems mount, according to a report released on Thursday. The report produced by Ceres, a coalition of investors and environmentalists and Swiss Bank UBS, ranked 100 of the biggest publicly traded companies on the quality, depth and clarity of their water disclosure risks and opportunities.

2010/02/12: TWTB: Hoisted on their own petardThe all out assault on climate reality continues. Anti-science front group SPPI has put together a series of attacks on RealClimate by the Pielkes and others, courtesy of Marc “Swiftboat” Morano.

2010/02/08: SacBee: Palin likens global warming studies to ‘snake oil’Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin called studies supporting global climate change a “bunch of snake oil science” Monday during a rare appearance in California, a state that has been at the forefront of environmental regulations. Palin spoke before a logging conference in Redding, a town of 90,000 about 160 miles north of the state capital. The media were barred from the event…

2010/02/07: Independent(UK): Think-tanks take oil money and use it to fund climate deniers — ExxonMobil cash supported concerted campaign to undermine case for man-made warmingAn orchestrated campaign is being waged against climate change science to undermine public acceptance of man-made global warming, environment experts claimed last night. The attack against scientists supportive of the idea of man-made climate change has grown in ferocity since the leak of thousands of documents on the subject from the University of East Anglia (UEA) on the eve of the Copenhagen climate summit last December. Free-market, anti-climate change think-tanks such as the Atlas Economic Research Foundation in the US and the International Policy Network in the UK have received grants totalling hundreds of thousands of pounds from the multinational energy company ExxonMobil. Both organisations have funded international seminars pulling together climate change deniers from across the globe.

P.S. Recent postings can be found in the week archive and the ancient postings can be accessed here, which should open to this.

“The ever more intrusive realities of global warming, resource scarcity, and food insufficiency will, by the end of this century’s second decade, be undeniable and, if not by 2020, then in the decades to come, have the capacity to put normal military and economic power, no matter how impressive, in the shade.” – Michael Klare